NEW DISCHARGE PUMPING METHOD FOR CO2 LASERS

A NEW PULSED LASER DISCHARGE CONCEPT IS PROPOSED TO MEET MILITARY AND CIVILIAN REQUIREMENTS FOR EFFICIENT OPERATION OF COMPACT, HIGH ENERGY CO(2) LASERS. THIS DISCHARGE CONCEPT PROMISES PULSE LENGTHS OF UP TO 100 MICROSECONDS DURATION, SCALABILITY TO MULTI-KILOJOULE SINGLE PULSED ENERGY, HIGH VOLUMETRIC EFFICIENCY (> OR = 50 JOULES/LITERATM) AND HIGH ELECTRICAL EFFICIENCY (< OR = 20%). THIS DISCHARGE CONCEPT RELIES ON A NEW METHOD FOR MAINTAINING DISCHARGE STABILITY FOR LONG PULSE DURATIONS. THIS NEW CO(2) LASER DISCHARGE CONCEPT PROMISES INCREASED EFFICIENCY, REPETITION RATE, PULSE LENGTH, EXTRACTED ENERGY PER UNIT VOLUME AND RELIABILITY. THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED PROGRAM IS TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF THIS NEW CO(2) LASER DISCHARGE CONCEPT. IN THE PHASE I PROGRAM, THE NEW DISCHARGE CONCEPT WILL BE MODELLED, ANALYTICALLY AND NUMERICALLY, TO DETERMINE ITS STABILITY CHARACTERISTICS AS A FUNCTION OF THE DISCHARGE PARAMETERS (VOLTAGE, CURRENT, ELECTRODE GEOMETRY) FOR TYPICAL PULSED CO(2) LASER GAS MIXTURES AND PRESSURES. IN ADDITION, DURING THE PHASE I EFFORT, CO(2) LASER EXPERIMENTS WILL BE DESIGNED TO TEST THIS NEW DISCHARGE CONCEPT. THESE EXPERIMENTS ARE PROPOSED TO BE CONDUCTED DURING THE PHASE II EFFORT.